Ripple used its Swell 2026 conference to outline a wider push around its RLUSD stablecoin, institutional custody, and treasury products, while also trying to reassure the market that XRP remains central to the company’s long-term plans. CEO Brad Garlinghouse said XRP is Ripple’s “North Star,” even as he acknowledged that RLUSD or traditional fiat can be better suited to some types of financial transactions.

The company said it has now received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Ripple National Trust Bank, a federally supervised entity intended to support RLUSD reserves and institutional digital-asset custody. The event also brought new distribution and custody partnerships involving Coinbase, Robinhood, and BNY, alongside a company claim that product revenue run rate is approaching $900 million a year.

RLUSD expands across trading, settlement and custody

Ripple’s stablecoin was one of the main focuses of the conference. Coinbase expanded RLUSD access across Coinbase Prime, Coinbase Exchange, and its retail app, with support on the XRP Ledger, Ethereum, and Base.

Ripple also announced a broader relationship with Robinhood. Under that arrangement, RLUSD is expected to be used across Bitstamp, institutional settlement, and later the main Robinhood app. Ripple said Robinhood will also integrate Ripple Treasury into its internal financial operations.

Institutional support widened further as BNY added custody for both XRP and RLUSD. Moody’s also assigned RLUSD an A2 long-term and P-1 short-term investment-grade rating, with Ripple highlighting that P-1 is the agency’s highest short-term grade under its stablecoin framework.

National trust bank approval and treasury ambitions

Ripple said it received final OCC approval to create Ripple National Trust Bank. According to the company, the federally supervised entity is designed to back RLUSD reserves and provide institutional custody for digital assets.

Beyond stablecoin issuance, Ripple presented a broader corporate-finance strategy through Ripple Treasury. The offering combines AI-powered cash management, payments, forecasting, and liquidity tools, and includes a 24/7 Returns feature for eligible businesses that hold qualifying digital assets such as RLUSD.

The company also said its product revenue run rate is nearing $900 million on an annualized basis, a figure presented as part of its broader expansion in enterprise financial services.

XRPL proposals target permissioned assets

Ripple and C2FO are working to bring C2FO’s Instant Pay settlement platform to the XRP Ledger. The companies want to use XRPL and RLUSD to help suppliers receive funds in seconds instead of waiting days for standard bank transfers to settle.

At the protocol level, XRPL developers proposed four code changes aimed at tightening controls around permissioned tokens, including regulated stablecoins and tokenized funds that issuers want only approved accounts to hold. The proposed fixCleanup3_5_0 upgrade would remove remaining exceptions, including pathways involving automated market makers, and would generally limit unapproved holders to sending those tokens back to the issuer until authorization is granted.

The validator set also saw changes. Flare joined the XRPL validator list, while the XRP Ledger Foundation removed Anodos Finance after the project asked to be taken off ahead of a planned validator shutdown by the end of the month.

XRP weakens despite the conference headlines

While Ripple’s October announcements were substantial, XRP moved lower along with the broader market. The token was rejected at $1.40 on October 21, then fell to $1.25 before recovering and testing $1.35 after the Federal Reserve paused interest-rate hikes on Wednesday.

That recovery was interrupted by what the source article described as the largest hack against any crypto exchange, which triggered a broader sell-off earlier on October 30. XRP fell to a multi-month low of $1.19 before rebounding slightly.

Even after that bounce, the token was still down 4% on the day and 6% over the week, with its market capitalization dropping below $80 billion. The next confirmed developments to watch are the rollout of the newly announced RLUSD integrations and whether the proposed XRPL code changes move forward.

Source: cryptopotato.com